Behind the Couch

I have contributed to a new Spanish language book on Italian giallo films. Giallo: crimen sexualidad y estilo en el cine de género italiano ( Giallo: Crime, Sexuality and Style in Italian Genre Cinema ) is the latest publication from Buenos Aires-based Colectivo Rutemberg (Rutemberg Collective), a multidisciplinary group of artists, journalists, academics and writers dedicated to the creation of audio-visual and journalistic content. This publication, which features work from over 20 authors from Latin America and Europe, is particularly unique as it is the first ever Latin American book solely dedicated to Italian genre cinema, with a specific focus on the giallo. Edited by Natalio Pagés, Álvaro Bretal & Carlos Pagés, Giallo: crimen sexualidad y estilo en el cine de género italiano features content on many of the filmmakers who are renowned for their contributions to the giallo: there are essays on the work of Dario Argento, Sergio Martino, Lucio Fulci, Luciano Ercoli, Mar...

"Death Serenades Me" * Italian composer Ennio Morricone is responsible for creating some of cinema’s most evocative and powerful scores. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and significant film composers of all time, his work spans decades and he has scored films for the likes of Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mario Bava, Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski, Adrian Lyne, Oliver Stone, Pedro Almodovar and Roland Joffè, to name but a few. While particularly renowned for his scores for Sergio Leone-directed Spaghetti Westerns, such as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly , Morricone has written film music for almost every conceivable genre. Though they are not as renowned as some of his other scores, his soundtracks for various horror films, psychological thrillers and Italian gialli are amongst some of the most dazzling, unusual and nerve shredding scores ever composed. Head over to Paracinem...

1972 Dir. Sergio Martino When she loses her unborn baby in a car accident, a grieving woman becomes the target of a Satanic cult who may have been responsible for the death of her mother many years ago… Sergio Martino’s All the Colours of the Dark is a psychedelic trip of a giallo, filtered through the gothic aesthetics of Hammer Horror and the Satanic Panic-induced paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby . Reconceptualising the usual conventions of the giallo into a plot about a Satanic cult’s advances on a traumatised woman, it falls into a miniscule group of films critic Kim Newman dubs ‘giallo-fantastico’; gialli which boast overtly supernatural aspects as well as typical troupes such as sexual perversion, blackmail and murder. Adding to the delirious nature of the plot are abstract dream sequences and myriad moments which cunningly blur the line between reality and deranged fantasy. Jane (Edwige Fenech) has increasing panic attacks, hallucinations and nightmares which are woven into ...

Mario Bava with Jacqueline Pierreux ( Black Sabbath ) The undisputed Master of Italian horror cinema, Mario Bava, would have turned 98 years old today. Sadly, Mr Bava passed away in 1980 at the age of 65, but he left behind an astonishing body of work. Specialising in darkly beautiful Gothic Horror, Bava also dabbled in genres as eclectic as sword and sandal peplums, science fiction ( Planet of the Vampires ), comic book adaptations, psychological thrillers and is generally heralded as the filmmaker responsible for kick starting the giallo (later popularised by Dario Argento), with his morbidly exquisite films The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace . He also had a tremendous influence on the contemporary slasher movie, with his wickedly humorous whodunit, Bay of Blood . Taking the body-count template of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None , Bava created a staggeringly violent, though elegantly lensed shocker that would have an overwhelming impact on the likes ...

The prolific and versatile career of Sergio Martino spans many movie genres; sci-fi, horror, action, documentary, comedy, war and westerns. With titles such as The Mountain of the Cannibal God, The River of the Great Alligator, The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence, Naked and Violent, A Man Called Blade and Vendetta from the Future , it’s obvious Martino had a penchant for exploitative fare laden with copious amounts of sex and violence. It therefore comes as no surprise, given that Martino was most prolific in the Seventies and Eighties and not afraid to experiment or dabble with different genres, that he is perhaps most famed for his work in the horror/thriller arena; specifically his violent and stylish gialli. Produced throughout the Seventies – arguably the Golden Era of the exclusively Italian genre - several of these films featured memorable collaborations with prolific actress, Edwige Fenech. Perhaps because of Martino’s willingness to experiment and work in different g...

Director Dario Argento really needs no introduction. For over forty years now he has been responsible for creating some of the most important and controversial horror movies in cinema history and his work has influenced a slew of filmmakers. Famed for titles such as Deep Red, Suspiria and Opera , his films are inimitably stylish, atmospheric and dazzlingly shot, as well as being unbelievably violent and unnerving explorations of the darker side of human nature. Drawing from an encyclopaedic array of influences such as art, philosophy, literature, cinema and indeed Italy’s own rich and full-blooded culture, Argento continues to experiment and forge ahead in the creation of beguiling and devastatingly violent visions to this day. I recently had the absolute pleasure of conducting a brief interview with Dario Argento himself – words I never thought I’d type! With the help of Kamera Books’ Francesca Brazzorotto, who kindly set up and facilitated the whole interview, translating my ques...

Amer ('Bitter') has been causing quite a stir on the festival circuit of late. Filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have concocted a heady and mesmerizing brew that harks back to the dazzling and uber-stylised Italian gialli of the Seventies. Forzani and Cattet have set about recreating all the familiar motifs, visual codes, stylistic traits and clichés from the blood drenched and lurid archives of the giallo film. Classic gialli such as Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin , Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and All the Colours of the Dark are paid tribute to in a virtually dialogue free story revolving around the concepts of obsession, sexuality, trauma and death. All this unfolds in a visual feast backed by pieces from classic giallo scores to create a stunning and haunting mood-piece that will sear itself onto your retina and into your nightmares long after its provocative array of images have finished strutting ac...

March looks set to be a good month for fans of Dario Argento.  My book , an introductory guide to his film work, is due out on the 25th. It examines his entire output to date: from his earlier gialli such as The Animal Trilogy and Deep Red , through his elaborately gothic fairytales Suspiria and Inferno , right up to his more recent contributions to TV's Masters of Horror , the conclusion of his Three Mothers trilogy, Mother of Tears , and his latest thriller, Giallo . I also look at his work as producer, including titles such as George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead , Lamberto Bava's Demons and Michele Soavi's The Church .  This month also sees the publication of a new edition of author and film critic Maitland McDonagh's seminal book,  Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento. I recently chatted to Maitland about the new edition and her love of Argento films. Stay tuned for my interview with her, which I'll post later in the month.  Stay...